A Matter Of Black And White
by natlovesyou
Summary: The saddest thing about betrayal is that it never comes from your enemies. Piper/Cyclonis friendship.


Before you start reading this, just know that I DO NOT ship Piper/Cyclonis in any way besides friends. I worry about the people who ship them as more than that(no offense if you do)...

Best Friends Forever is one of my favorite episodes(and not just because of the small moment between Aerrow and Piper at the end) because it really shows both more about Piper and Cyclonis' characters and that even though they both play huge roles in the war, they're still just normal 14 year old girls who want a friend to laugh with.

So please enjoy!

* * *

_ "So, Piper...seeing as you're a girl and all...you wanna um...braid each other's hair...or something?"_

That had made her smile and truly thankful for the friendship that she had in her teammates. But it didn't make her forget or the pain any less real. In fact, it made her miss the laughs she had shared with Lark.

Piper frowned as she stared at her desk. After what had happened she would never see Cyclonis in black and white like she used to. She would always see her as the girl who saved her from the storm, who had made her completely forget about the bad weather, the girl who made her laugh harder than she ever thought she could, and the one person who listened to her go on and on about her crystals only to reply with matched enthusiasm. Most of all, though, she would always see her as Lark, not Cyclonis.

And for some deep meaning Piper could not understand, that made it harder for the Storm Hawk to truly consider the Empress as her enemy.

No, Piper concluded, Cyclonis wasn't a complete enemy, at least not anymore. If she was then being betrayed by her wouldn't have hurt so bad. She remembered someone once telling her about how betrayal never came from one's enemy but came from just the opposite of that. She sighed. Looking back, that couldn't have been more true.

Her enemy, Cyclonis, didn't betray her. No, it was her friend, _best friend_, Lark, that had betrayed her. And as Piper rubbed her eyes of oncoming tears she tried to remember the time when everything was only black and white. The time when there wasn't confusion or mixed emotions about who she was fighting against.

She thought and strained her mind to rememer those times, but she couldn't. Her life was in white and Cyclonis was the black that was seeping through and darkening it, making things harder to understand. Now her life was in gray, a mix between the white that was her and the black that was once her very best friend.

Now there wasn't just Cyclonis. There was also Lark. Cyclonis and Lark. They were the same person, but Piper could never see it that way. Even in the midst of this gray the one person who caused the mixture was still seen in black and white. This made Piper very confused and frustrated. She just didn't know what to think anymore.

But as she took a look of the picture of her and her team that was hung on her wall, she smiled at the fact that even in all this confusion she still had one thing to be certain of: she still had her boys. Though she couldn't share everything with them because of the gender difference, she was still glad that they were there for her when she needed a good laugh.

* * *

_ "Oblivion Crystals don't work on friends, even if they were only friends for a moment. It's a dud."_

That made Cyclonis want to scream out in frustration. Who that frustration was directed towards, whether it be her or Piper, she didn't know. This frustration, this anger, was all new for her. She was used to being angry at her Talons for another failed attempt to follow her instructions, she was used to the a Dark Ace reporting another failure at the hands of that cursed Sky Knight.

But it wasn't that kind of frustration she was feeling. It wasn't the kind that came from what she was used to. She was frustrated at herself and at Piper. She was mad that she was foolish to think that the crystal could work, she was mad that Piper had bested at her at her own game.

She was _upset_ that Piper had rejected her...that she had betrayed her.

Cyclonis paused, her slim, white fingers coiling into fists. This made her angry. The fact that Piper had said no to her. She wasn't used to rejection after living a life of independence with an army of people serving your every wish. No one had ever said _no_ to her before. And the fact that it came from Piper made it all the more bitter tasting. She grabbed her staff, gripping it tightly, the purple crystal at its end growing brighter.

"No one says no to me." Cyclonis seethed to herself.

But after a few more moments of dwelling on it, the young Empress couldn't decide whether it was her pride that was hurt or her heart. She touched the spot on her chest where her heart was, feeling its steady beat. Something felt empty there, like there was something off. It was a feeling that she hadn't had when she was with Piper. The feeling had never even made itself known through all the laughing and giggling.

That was because, Cyclonis realized, when she was with Piper, she got a glimpse of happiness and companionship. Because for a single moment she had stepped out of the black that was her life and stepped into the white that was Piper's friendship. For a single moment her life was gray, and she had liked that. She didn't like living in this black and hollow palace by her lonesome. That was why she had asked Piper to accompany her in her quest to conquer the Atmos. So that even when she had to return to this black place, she could bring back a little bit of that white and keep a little bit of gray in her life.

But no, that wasn't possible. Piper was selfish and didn't want to share her white. She wanted to leave Cyclonis behind in the black. She growled and threw her staff down, the crystal shattering just like her heart had.

The thing that made this all worse for Cyclonis was that from then on Piper would continue to frustrate her, but not like enemy would, but like a friend would. And now she had no one to share her frustration with. She was left in the black longing for that gray she had absentmindedly come to cherish.

Cyclonis shook her head. Standing there sulking did nothing for her real purpose.

A lonely girl who desperately wanted a friend she may have been, but she was still an Empress.

She still had a world to conquer.

* * *

Do you like it?

Love it?

Hate it?

Ok...tell me what you think! This was my first time writing from Cyclonis' point of view so don't be harsh if I messed up her character!  
I tried to use contrast with this, hence the black and white theme I kept using. Though it never showed, I think this was how Cyclonis could've felt. Same for Piper.

Like Piper hated the confusion, the gray, while Cyclonis had loved it.

Do you get it? Eh...I'm probably being stupid now...

Forgive me if I made any mistakes in grammar or spelling!


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